Integrated circuits are quite susceptible to damage from electrostatic discharge from common environmental sources and can be destroyed when subjected to voltages higher than their intended voltage supply. Electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection circuits are used to discharge current from ESD events harmlessly, with silicon controlled rectifiers (SCR) providing an effective solution in a small area. However, issues remain in the design of SCRs for high-voltage pins. A solution is lacking with regard to a low-leakage, low-capacitance bipolar based SCR for high voltage pins. Non-SCR based solutions are inefficient, while existing SCR designs suffer from high leakage due to punch-through issues.